The United States maintains a licensing mechanism known as the Steel Import Monitoring and Analysis (hereinafter referred to as the ‘SIMA’) System. As per the system, any business importing steel mill products covered under the licensing program is required to procure a license. This includes importers, importing agents or brokers. Th...

With the Finance Bill 2016, the penalty regime in income-tax law is proposed to undergo a major overhaul. Earlier system provided for a levy of penalty, for concealment of income or furnishing inaccurate particulars of income, of an amount between 100% to 300% of the tax sought to be...

The last two Budgets were witness to the Government trying to put a quietus to the storm generated over retrospective taxation and to increase tax compliance through certain amendments to law and procedures. The Union Budget-2016 carries the imprimatur of the government’s emphasis on “Transform India”. Towards this objective, the G...

The Government of Tamil Nadu has brought out certain amendments to the Tamil Nadu Value Added Tax Act 2006 (‘the Act’) and the Tamil Nadu Value Added Tax Rules, 2007 (‘the Rules’), with effect from 29th January, 2016 [see end note 1]. From a holistic reading of the amendments it is clear that the legislatur...

Access to information is a cornerstone in any administrative or quasi-judicial proceeding and non-availability of the relied upon documents to the affected parties have been condemned for long by the highest Court of this country.

Designated Authority is a quasi-judicial authority, which conducts anti-dumping investigations in India, ...

In the law of Income-tax, the main principles are fairly simple – the whole difficulty arise in their application. The first question, what is income, is a dark cat in the bag of the income-tax code [See End Note 1]. Over the years, the question has been more focussed, is it a black cat or a little mouse. Tax...

Budget 2016 is just around the corner and despite the fact that the ‘seamless’ tax regime of GST passes through political rough weather, the government is intent on implementing it from next fiscal. But the age old excise concepts like those on taxable event of manufacture continue to evolve even at this hou...

The EU Commission recently held a debate on the sensitive issue of granting ‘market economy status’ to China. Considering China’s Accession Protocol, it may be noted that the final decision will have to be made by the European Parliament and EU Member States later this year.

Section 6(3) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 (‘Act’) has been amended vide Finance Act, 2015 to introduce the concept of Place of Effective Management (‘PoEM’) to determine residential status of companies. Memorandum to Finance Bill, 2015 provided that the amendment has been brought to align the provisions of the Act...

Central Excise law, after six decades of its existence, is expected to yield its place to the Goods & Service Tax (GST) shortly but it continues to evolve even today. Determination of ‘place of removal’ for the purpose of inclusion of freight and insurance charges in assessable value, under Central ...

Article 5 of WTO:ADA provides for initiation and subsequent investigation. Clause (ii) of Article 5.2 provides that the application shall contain the information relating to the names of the country or countries of origin or export in question. Article 5.4 prohibits initiation of an Anti-dumping Duty investigation unless the Investigating A...

Swachh Bharat Cess (“SBC”) proposed at the “rate of 2% on all or any services” in Budget Speech on 28th February 2015, was notified vide Notification No. 21/2015-ST and Notification No. 22/2015-ST both dated 6th November 2015 for imposition from 15th November 2015 onwards “just ...